Freedmen and Southern Society Project

FAIN: RQ-50443-10

University of Maryland, College Park (College Park, MD 20742-5141)
Leslie S. Rowland (Project Director: November 2009 to May 2016)

Preparation of two volumes of the documentary history of the transition from slavery to freedom in the U.S. South: Land and Labor, 1866-67 and Law and Justice. (24 months)

The Freedmen and Southern Society Project is editing FREEDOM: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF EMANCIPATION, 1861-1867, a nine-volume documentary history of the transition from slavery to freedom in the U.S. South. The edition documents a critical juncture in American history: the moment when four million slaves gained their freedom. It constitutes a social history in the words of emancipated slaves and their contemporaries. Five of the nine volumes are in print; each is between 800 and 1,100 pages long, considerably larger than the volumes in most editions. Editorial work on the sixth volume is nearing completion, and preliminary selection of documents for the seventh is well advanced. The editors have also prepared four shorter volumes for general audiences and use in the classroom, as well as several article-length collections of documents. The project's web site provides both documents and interpretive material; it has been designated one of the best sites for humanities education.